1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus to generate control signals according to the movement of human finger end or palm of finger. Further, the present invention relates to a signal inputting apparatus, and more specifically to a pointing device structure for coding control mode from applied force by a human finger to input signals to a personal computer so that an pointer or cursor corresponding thereto can be directed the position on a display unit. Further, the present invention relates to a force-electricity transducing apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In usual, when electronic home appliances such as television sets, air conditioners, etc. and information processing apparatus such as personal computers are commanded, a remote controller or a keyboard both provided with a plurality of buttons or keys is widely used. Recently, however, a pointing device for moving a cursor on a display picture has been widely used subsidiarily together with the above-mentioned signal inputting device.
In the signal generating apparatus such as the remote controller or the pointing device, in general, a conductive rubber element (as a force-electricity transducing element) is arranged under each of the base portions of a plurality of buttons arranged being spatially separated from each other. Therefore, when a compression force is applied to each conductive rubber element through each button, a predetermined electric signal can be generated to generate a predetermined command.
In addition, when the button is depressed plural times simultaneously, it is possible to generate another predetermined command. In this case, after the compression force detected by the conductive rubber element has been once converted into an electric signal, separately, these electric signals are superposed upon each other to generate a new signal. In other words, when the signal transducing apparatus is handled, two commands can be generated; that is, one command can be generated by the movement of a single finger, and the other command can be generated by the movement of a plurality of fingers.
Further, as a modification of the signal transducing apparatus, there exists such a method that when the same button is depressed plural times intermittently, the number of compression times is measured to assign the measured compression times to commands, respectively.
For the feature, although there exists such a tendency that functions of the home appliances and the information processing apparatus increase more and more, there exists a limit of the number of the buttons arranged on the surface of the signal transducing apparatus. Therefore, a complicated operation such that a plurality of buttons are depressed at the same time or the same button is depressed plural times will be required, as described above.
In the prior art signal transducing apparatus, however, there exist the following problems:
In the case of the prior art remote controller or a pointing device, a single force-electricity transducing element is assigned to each button. Therefore, in the case where a plurality of buttons are arranged on one force-electricity transducing element, a signal obtained when a plurality of buttons are depressed continuously by the user's finger is indicated as a resultant force from the spatial standpoint, it has been so far impossible to distinguish the mutual positional relationship among the buttons.
Further, in the method of depressing the same button plural times intermittently, since the force-electricity transducing element can detect only a resultant force of the compression forces as described above, the effect is the same as with the case where only a single button is prepared.
Further, there exists a pointing device which is provided with such a function as to detect the user's arm or finger movement, convert the detected movement into an electric signal, and input the converted signal to the apparatus. However, the above-mentioned pointing device has been mainly used as a device (referred to as a mouse or track ball) for a computer or a device (referred to as a joy stick) for a game apparatus.
On the other hand, recently, with the spread of portable personal computers, such a signal inputting apparatus that an operator's finger movement is directly detected and the detected movement is inputted to the personal computer has been widely used in order to improve the operability of the personal computer. In this apparatus, in general, a conductive rubber element and the other force-electricity transducing element are arranged on a plane, and a compression force of the human finger moved thereon is converted into an electric signal. Therefore, the operator can perform the subsidiary operation by use of such a pointing device in parallel to the main keyboard operation.
In general, in the pointing device as described above, the change of the operator's finger end with respect to time is detected to execute an operation on the picture now being displayed. For instance, in the case of the pointing device using a flat conductive rubber element, when an object to be operated is a cursor displayed on a picture, the movement direction and the movement speed of the cursor can be controlled according to the movement direction and the movement speed of the finger on the pointing device.
In this case, the input operation is executed, irrespective of the compression force applied by the operator's finger end onto the pointing device.
On the other hand, as a pointing device used for the game, there are rod-shaped heads. In this case, a pressure sensitive element having a gauge for detecting distortion is often disposed at the base portion thereof. In this pointing device, the movement direction and the movement speed of the cursor are decided according to the direction and the magnitude of the depression force applied by the operator to the rod.
In the above-mentioned prior art pointing devices, no problem arises when the cursor is only moved on the picture now being displayed. However, in the case where the cursor is moved to an icon displayed at a predetermined position on a picture to select the icon by a single click or a double click and the cursor is further moved for another operation, as with the case of a mouse, some operation corresponding to click is additionally required.
In the case of the pointing device using the conductive rubber element, the click operation can be realized by depressing the same position at a short time interval by the finger end without moving the finger, that is, by depressing the pointing device quickly. On the other hand, in the case of the rod-shaped head, an additional switch is provided to input a signal corresponding to a click. This is the same as with the case of the prior art track ball type pointing device, so that an additional click switch is indispensable.
As described above, in the prior art pointing device, as far as the cursor is moved mainly on the picture now being displayed. The pointing device can be used as it is without causing any problem. However, when the current picture is switched to another picture and further the succeeding operation is required, it is necessary to provide an additional operation or additional operating means for the pointing device. In other words, when two continuous operations are linked with each other, an operation for moving the preceding operation to the succeeding operation is indispensable. This is the same when two icons each for deciding one operation are displayed on two different pictures, respectively. In this case, an additional operation for displaying the succeeding picture now being not displayed is necessary.
Further, when the two ions displayed on the two continuous pictures, respectively are arranged at two different positions on the pictures, the cursor is first stopped at a first position on the first picture; and after the picture has been switched to the succeeding picture, the cursor must be moved to the icon position on the new picture. In other words, whenever the cursor is moved on the two pictures, it is unavoidable to move the cursor plural times intermittently. For instance, even if the icon position of the succeeding picture can be predicted, the cursor position must be moved again for accurate cursor locating operation, so that it is impossible to omit the succeeding cursor operation. On the other hand, when the picture is returned to the original picture, the cursor operation is quite the same as above; that is, it is impossible to perform the two cursor operations for two different pictures continuously or reversibly.
Further, even if a pointing device of predictable operation would be considered, it may be impossible to accurately point out an icon position of the succeeding picture now not yet displayed. In addition, when the pointing device is operated by the operator, since there exists an operator's peculiarity in depression force characteristics, even if the optimum characteristics are set to a specific operator, there exists a problem in that the set characteristics are not appropriate to the other operators. In summary, it has been so far extremely difficult to predict an icon position accurately on the succeeding picture now not yet displayed.
The causes of the above-mentioned problems may be partially attributable to the problem of hierarchical structure of software. On the other hand, however, the cause of the hierarchical software structure is related to the problem on the characteristics of the force-electricity converting element. For instance, in the case of the conductive rubber element, a low resolving power of the depression force remains as the basic problem. On the other hand, in the case of the pressure sensitive element, since positions cannot be designated on a plane on the principle and further since the direction and the magnitude of depression force are converted into two dimensional data, there exists a problem in that the pressure sensitive element cannot be used to designate an absolute position on a plane.
In other words, in the prior art pointing devices, only two-dimensional data can be obtained as the reproducible data, and further there exists such a problem in that it is impossible to execute the simultaneous operation on both the present picture now being displayed and the succeeding picture now not yet displayed.
FIG. 24 is a perspective view showing a first prior art signal inputting apparatus. In the drawing, a notebook-type personal computer 1 is composed of an operation section 2 and a display section 3. In the operation section 2, a keyboard 4 and a pad-type input section 5 (as a pointing device) are arranged. Further, on the display section 3, a picture 8 is displayed. On the picture of the display section 3, a plurality of icons 61 to 68 are displayed, and one of these ions can be selected by a pointer 7 displayed on the same picture 8.
Further, the pad-type inputting section 5 using a conductive rubber element can move the pointer 7 on the picture 8 according to the movement of the operator's finger. Here, the operation obtained when the finger end is moved in an arrow direction B on the pad-type input section 5 to move the pointer 7 to the icon 64 on the picture 8 will be described hereinbelow.
Although the basic unit of the movement speed of the pointer 7 on the picture 8 is decided by a predetermined coefficient, the practical movement speed thereof is determined by the frequency of the finger movements on the upper surface of the pad-type input section 5. In practice, however, since the size of the pad-type input section is fairly smaller than that of the picture 8, even when the finger end moves along the arrow B1 on the pad-type input section 5, the pointer 7 moves only a short distance as shown by an arrow A1 in FIG. 24. Therefore, it is necessary for the operator to move his finger end plural times on the pad-type input section 5 to move the pointer 7 on the picture 8 in the order of an arrow A2, an arrow A3, and an arrow A4 at a target icon position 64 in sequence. In other words, the operator must depress the pad-type input section 5 plural times for each movement of the pointer 7. Further, in practice, since the pointer 7 is moved in dependence upon the sense of the operator, it is difficult to move the pointer 7 straight to the target position on the picture 8. Therefore, the finger end must be moved in various directions to the target icon 6 along various paths.
FIG. 25 is a perspective view showing a second prior art signal input apparatus. In this signal input apparatus, pressure sensitive elements are arranged into a matrix form under a pad of the pad-type input section 5 in such a way that the depression position on the pad may correspond to the position of the pointer 7 on the picture 8.
The pad-type input section 5 calculates the finger depression position on the basis of the detection values of a plurality of the pressure sensitive elements arranged into matrix form, and allows the finger position on the pad-type input section 5 to correspond to the pointer (7) position on the picture B.
As a result, when the pointer 7 is required to be moved to the icon 64, the finger end is placed at a position Cl and then depresses the pad-type input section 5, as shown in FIG. 25. In this case, the pointer 7 can be moved to the icon 64 directly as shown by the arrow A5 in FIG. 25.
In practice, however, as shown in FIG. 26, a plurality of hierarchical hidden pictures 81, 82 and 83 are prepared in addition to the picture 8 now being displayed. Further, a plurality of pictures are overlapped with each other as a single picture according to circumstances. In any case, the hierarchical pictures 81, 82 and 83 are all hidden behind the actual picture 8.
In the case where the icon operation on the picture 8 is the main work and thereby the three pictures 81, 82 and 83 are changed over in sequence for a series of operations, in general since a command for changing the picture 8 is inputted to select a desired picture and then the pad-type input section 5 is depressed on the basis of an icon displayed on the newly displayed picture, a serious problem will not occur. However, when the operator has been skilled in a series of operations, the troublesome picture change-over work may reduce the work efficiency, so that it may be considered that the higher efficiency can be expected when the hidden picture is changed over by pointing out the icon 6 directly on the hidden picture. Further, as with the case shown in FIG. 26, where the icon (6) position on the picture 8 is almost the same as the icon (6) position on the hidden pictures 81, 82 and 83, a special training or skill is not needed to predict the icon position on the hidden picture.
In this case, it may be considered that the work efficiency can be improved, when the picture is changed over by directly pointing out any one of the icons 6 on the hidden pictures 81, 82 and 83 from the picture 8, while adjusting the finger end depression force applied onto the pad-type input section 5, as compared with when another special work is intervened.
In this case, however, since the pad-type input section 5 is operated by a human being in practice, even if the position C2 can be specified, it may be difficult to point out any one of a plurality of pictures 81, 82 and 83 on the basis of difference in the finger end depression force decided for each corresponding picture. In this case, however, when the detection resolving power and the reproducibility of the pressure sensitive elements of the pad-type input section 5 are sufficiently high, it is practically possible to designate any one of the hidden pictures from the technical standpoint.
However, even if the depression force can be controlled and thereby any one of the pictures 81, 82 and 83 can be selected, the direction of the applied depression force is a serious problem. For instance, as shown in FIG. 27, when a depression force is applied at the same position C2 on the pad-type input section 5, if the depression direction differs for each depression operation as shown by arrows D1, D2 and D3, since the designated position of the pointer 7 differs on each picture, the pointer position 7 on the picture differs as follows: a pointer is located at a position 71 in the picture 81, a pointer is located at a position 72 in the picture 82, and a pointer is located at a position 73 in the picture 83, respectively. As a result, it is at all impossible to change over the pictures continuously, while locating the pointer 7 on the picture. Much more, the work becomes difficult when the operator changes.
As described above, in the prior art signal inputting apparatus, it has been impossible to assign a relatively large number of commands to a plurality of buttons. In addition, although data limited in two-dimensional directions can be inputted at some accuracy, when data are inputted while changing over two or more pictures, since the operation is subjected to the influence of the operational characteristics (e.g., depression force) of the operator, there exists a problem in that the accurate operation has been so far impossible.